Citizens save young girl from burning car in Ballard

Citizens jumped in Thursday night to save a young girl and a man inside a burning car in Ballard.

“At first, I got scared. I’m thinking the cars are going to catch on fire, and it’s going to blow up and I’m going to blow up in it. But I just said, ‘I’m not going to leave that little girl in there. It ain’t happening.’ You know what I mean? I reacted more than thinking,” restaurant owner Kenny Johnson told KOMO-TV

The girl, a man and another man all suffered life-threatening injuries and were rushed to Harborview Medical Center. The girl is in satisfactory condition Friday morning, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The cause of the accident, police say, was a black Ford Fusion that was speeding northbound on 15th Avenue Northwest about 6:15 p.m.

At Northwest 70th Street, the Fusion hit an occupied vehicle but just kept going. No one was injured.

At Northwest 75th Street, the Fusion hit the rear of a Subaru, whose occupants included a man in his 40s behind the wheel and the girl, age 3 or 4, who was strapped into a car seat in the back seat.

That set off a chain-reaction accident. The Subaru hit a white Dodge pickup, which was pushed into another Subaru and a Volvo.

The Subaru with the girl and man inside caught fire. Others involved in the accident got a fire extinguisher and put the fire out before police arrived.

The owner of a nearby business ran outside and freed the little girl from the burning car.

KOMO-TV indentified the man as Johnson, owner of the restaurant Rizzo’s French Dip.

“The little girl was like an angel in there. Three year old, blond hair, blue eyes, you know what I mean? Couldn’t leave her in there. Everybody else was just panicked because it was such a horrific accident,” he said.

They couldn’t get the driver out, but police were able to.

The driver of the Fusion, a man in his 40s, also suffered life-threatening injuries.

Witnesses said he appeared to be having a seizure.

“I was pouring water on him, trying to get him conscious. By then it was just a mob squad out here. There was 1,000 neighbors out here, you know what I mean?” Johnson told KOMO.

The pickup’s driver had minor injuries and was treated at the scene. No one else was injured.

Police are continuing to investigate. And they praised the citizens who jumped in to help.

“The Seattle Police Department is incredibly impressed with the courage and the humanity – the selfless act of the people out here that put their life in danger to save these other folks before we even got here,” said Detective Jeff Kappel, a police spokesman.